Zhurong

Summary

Zhurong 祝融 is the lord of fire in early Chinese tradition, ruler of the south and ancestor of the kings of Chu. In the books he is both a name and a title: a god with a beast's body and a human face, and a title given to the "master of fire" at the courts of the first emperors.

The Shanhaijing, the Classic of Mountains and Seas, describes him in a few words in the chapter on the lands beyond the southern seas: "In the south is Zhurong, with a beast's body and a human face, riding two dragons." In its sixteenth chapter the book makes him a grandson of the emperor Zhuanxu 顓頊: Zhuanxu begot Laotong, Laotong begot Zhurong, and Zhurong begot Taizi Changqin, who lived on Mount Yao and first made music. The last chapter gives another descent: from the wife of Yandi, the Flame Emperor, came a line that begot Zhurong; Zhurong came down and lived by the Yangzi, and begot Gonggong, master of water. The same chapter tells of the flood: the waters rose to the sky, and Gun stole the Supreme Ruler's self-growing soil to dam them without waiting for his command, so the Supreme Ruler ordered Zhurong to kill Gun at the edge of Feather Mountain.

The Shiji, the Records of the Grand Historian, tells it as royal history in the chapter on the house of Chu. Chongli 重黎 was master of fire for the emperor Ku; he did his work well and his light melted the whole world bright, so the emperor named him Zhurong. Then Gonggong rebelled; the emperor sent Chongli to destroy him, and he did not finish the task, so the emperor executed Chongli and made his brother Wuhui 吳回 master of fire in his place, and Wuhui became Zhurong. From Wuhui's line came the house of Chu, and the book says a king of Chu destroyed the state of Kui because its people did not sacrifice to Zhurong.

The story told of him most often today is his war with Gonggong that broke Mount Buzhou 不周山, the pillar of heaven. The oldest books do not make Zhurong Gonggong's opponent: chapter 3 of the Huainanzi and the Liezi say it was Zhuanxu, and chapter 1 of the Huainanzi says it was Gaoxin, that is, the emperor Ku. Zhurong is the opponent in the Basic Annals of the Three Sovereigns, which Sima Zhen wrote in the eighth century as a preface to the Shiji: at the end of Nüwa's age Gonggong grew strong and sought to prevail by water; he fought Zhurong and could not win, and in his rage he butted Mount Buzhou so that it collapsed, the pillar of heaven broke and the cords of the earth snapped, and Nüwa smelted the five-coloured stones to patch the sky.

The idea his stories turn on is that fire guards the order of the world. Zhurong is the one sent to kill Gun when Gun defied the command, and to destroy Gonggong when Gonggong rebelled; and in the genealogies he is Gonggong's own father, so fire begets water and then fights it. Zhurong's fire is not only the fire of the hearth; it is a light that tells people their seasons. The Guoyu says he was called Zhurong because he lit up the brightness of heaven and made the virtue of the earth plain, until his light reached the four seas.

We read the name in the Arabic tongue like this, as a reading proposed on the method. 祝 was *[t]uk in Old Chinese, a tongue-tip stop, u and k, which we read as ḏakā, since ḏ is answered by t in the Juthoor tables. In Lane ḏakat al-nār is "the fire blazed, or flamed; burned brightly", and Ḏukāʾ is a proper name of the sun, which takes no article. 融 was *luŋ, and Baxter and Sagart suggest it may come from an earlier *lum, which we read as lamaʿa, "it shone brightly; gleamed". So on this reading Zhurong is "it blazed and gleamed", the fire that burns up and then its light shines, which is the meaning the old commentator Wei Zhao gives the name in Chinese: 祝 "beginning", 融 "brightness".

Linguistic Root

Baxter and Sagart give 祝 in the sense "pray, recite" as *[t]uk, bracketing the t because its exact identity among the tongue-tip stops is uncertain. Arabic ḏ is a tongue-tip letter, and the Juthoor tables give t among its counterparts; k is k; and the u after the t answers the w at the end of ḏ-k-w. They give 融 as *luŋ, followed by "? < *lum", because the graph is written with a phonetic that ends in m. If *lum is taken, l and m are the first two letters of lamaʿa in place.

In Lane under ḏ-k-w: ḏakat al-nār, "the fire blazed, or flamed; burned up; or burned brightly or fiercely", the root's primary sense being completeness; ḏakkā al-nār, "he made the fire to blaze"; Ḏukāʾ, "the sun", a proper name derived from ḏakat al-nār; and ibn Ḏukāʾ, the dawn, "because it is from the light of the sun". Under l-m-ʿ: lamaʿa, said of lightning and the like, "shone; shone brightly; gleamed; glistened", and lumʿa, a shining or glossy hue. The Guoyu says that Li, master of fire for the emperor Gaoxin, was named Zhurong because he lit up the brightness of heaven and made the virtue of the earth plain until his light reached the four seas, and Wei Zhao, in the third century, explains: 祝 "beginning", 融 "brightness". The Shiji says Chongli "melted the world bright". So the reading says what the Chinese say of the name: a fire that blazes up and a light that spreads.

The weak point is that Baxter and Sagart end 融 with a back nasal and offer the m only as a question, and that the final ʿ of lamaʿa has no counterpart in Chinese. The Chinese meaning of 祝 is to pray and recite, and it names the priest who addresses the spirits, not blazing. Neither of the project's Chinese essays names Zhurong, so the reading is proposed on the method.

Key Mythic Narratives

Chong and Li and the cutting of the way between earth and heaven

The Guoyu, in the chapter on Chu, tells that King Zhao asked his minister: what does the book mean when it says Chong and Li made heaven and earth no longer communicate? Could people once climb to heaven? The minister answered: at first people and spirits did not mix; at the end of Shaohao's age they mingled, every household set up its own shaman, offerings became worthless and disasters came. When Zhuanxu came he ordered Chong, the official of the south, to take charge of heaven and gather the spirits, and Li, the master of fire, to take charge of the earth and gather the people, and each returned to its place: this is "cutting the communication between earth and heaven". Later Yao restored the line of Chong and Li, and Wei Zhao says their descendants were Xi and He, whom Yao ordered to observe the sun. So in this account Li, the master of fire, is the one who parts earth from heaven, as other stories part them with a body.

Fire on the city of Xia

The Mozi, in the chapter "Against Offensive War", tells that when the Xia kings grew corrupt a spirit came to Tang, founder of the Shang, and said: I have ordered Rong to send down fire on the north-west corner of the city of Xia; and Tang defeated the army of King Jie.

Ruler of the south

Chapter 5 of the Huainanzi divides the world by directions and gives the farthest south, from beyond the land of the north-facing doors to the wilds of fire and hot wind, twelve thousand li, to the Red Emperor and Zhurong; its summer ordinances are to reward the virtuous and the meritorious, feed the hungry and relieve the poor.

Symbolic Reading

The Chinese essay rereading the myths makes each of the first emperors an invention: Shennong farming, Huangdi bronze and weaving. In the books Zhurong is a master of a craft rather than of inspiration: "master of fire" is a court office; he who does it well keeps it, and he who falls short is executed and his brother takes his place. His work, as the Guoyu says, is to light up heaven and make plain the virtue of the earth, that is, to keep the fire and teach people their seasons. The same essay keeps the lesson of the flood: Gun blocks the water and fails, someone else guides it, and Zhurong carries out the sentence on Gun between the two.

Cross-Cultural Parallels

The first graph of Zhurong's name, 祝, means to pray in Chinese and names the priest who addresses the spirits; and Agni in the first hymn of the Rigveda is the priest set at the front of the sacrifice and the invoker who calls the gods to it: "I invoke Agni, the one placed in front, god of the sacrifice, the priest, the invoker." In both traditions the god of fire is the one who prays, because fire carries the offering up to heaven.

Atar, the fire of the Iranians, fights the dragon Aži Dahāka over the Glory in the Zamyad Yasht, as Zhurong fights Gonggong, master of water, whose minister is a nine-headed serpent.

Zhurong comes down from heaven and lives by the Yangzi; Zeus hurls Hephaestus from the threshold of heaven and he falls a whole day until he lands on Lemnos. Both gods are fire coming down from the sky to stay on earth.